SDS 1.15 – Jai Ho

The Treasury of the World – Jewelled Arts of India in the Age of the Mughals is still running until the 27 June. Joelyn Alexandra, Raven Silvers, Avariel and I went there on the 28th of March because they were having a special Mighty Mughals weekend festival (we were busy on the 27th with this) ! It meant free entry to the Asian Civilizations Museum too! The one near the river. Behind the Arts House, that one since I know there’s two.

Well, we actually went to Earshot Cafe at the Arts House first to do a little kick-off for Script Frenzy and then we went to the building which was pretty much just behind/in front of it depending on how you faced the directions? The first thing we saw when we got to the museum was this! Horsies! Yay! If you were a kid, you could ride on some of them. To be technical, they were ponies. You could take pictures with them though even if you were too big to ride on them.

We wandered outside a bit and then got into the building because we were told that for some activities and things, you have to get coupons where were inside at the main gallery! There were also performances like Indian dances and songs using instruments like the tabla and others that I don’t know the name of. We didn’t stick around for the performances, you see, we headed straight into the gallery to look around at things!

There were lots of jewel encrusted katars and weapons besides jewelry and gems. The one above is one of the plainest ones and it’s hard to find a plain one because the rest were VERY bling bling. They were all very beautiful and oh, if you entered in the main lobby, you could get a little picture book (mainly for kids) to fill in the answers and get the pages stamped with some of the stamps at the stations in the gallery.

We managed to find the staff who held the coupons! The one with the ice cream is laminated because I know the museum has other special weekends and give it out then too.

We also met Mr Magoo the snakey! At this point things got blurry since no flash allowed in there. The whole gallery looks very beautiful like it was inside an Indian palace or the interior of Assassin’s Creed which is pretty historical in the first place anyway. I was like woah, the interior decorators/exhibit people really made this look very good.

Ok, before you head into the main gallery, you might notice these screens around the place too. They’re audio/visual guides telling you things about whatever you pressed on screen. We were amused by one that was out of order though because we get amused by the simplest things anyway. If you have time and want to know more about the exhibit area they’re at, touch them! It’s more for the permanent Asian exhibits though.

At the basement of the museum, Caesars showcased weapons too. You were able to take a picture with some weapons in the back with a background of bamboo trees. Naturally, we did so of course since hello, we got to pose with katanas, rifles and pistols.

Once we did have our coupons and went through the galleries and such, we decided to head out to do the activities and get ice cream! BUT FIRST! The Proletariat Poetry Factory was there! We went all, “Ooh, isn’t that…” etc etc because we can recognize who some of them are. Alas, we’re literary and all that but not many of the scene recognize us yet.

ANYWHO, you write your name and a word. They will write a poem for you. This would take maybe around 30 minutes or so? So we placed our names and the word we wanted since we were going to hang around the area anyway.

First, we got our free kulfi ice cream. They may look the same but we had mango, strawberry and pistachio. They just didn’t have colours and all that. There’s also a stall there selling food and after all this, we ended up at Komalas eating Indian food.

And then off to the tents to check out what they had! Some had free massages/spa things or were selling jewelry and other assorted things.

Raven and Avariel queued up at the tent where they were doing free henna designs! Jo and I instead sat near the tent towards the river while I played on the ukulele. It was a really sunny day and the that tent was really popular. The day being sunny and the tent being popular had nothing to do with each other though.

The hand on the left is Raven’s while Avariel’s is on the right just in case you’re wondering why one hand is bigger than the other. The lady doing Raven’s design was really fast. I can’t remember if it was the same lady who did Avariel’s though but the end effect after the henna dried out was pretty pretty.

Oh and so we waited around half an hour or so inside the museum and then outside of it while their hands dried before we went to the archery section. It was a mini trial where you can only shoot three arrows. It was free and fun for the children who wanted to try it out too! We were going all, “That’s it?” because heh, we expected more. Though considering this is a free one and 3 would be enough since there was a queue too. If it were 12 shots or so, it might back up the line for quite a while. This one is Ace Archery so if you’re interested in learning how to do so, you can check them out too.

Eventually we spent enough time out on the lawn area of the museum that we were able to get our poems when we went in there once more! For those who for some reason can’t read the letter, I SHALL TYPE IT HERE.

My word to them: boobies

Its no wonder guys are obsessed

With the wondrous things that are breasts

Even into this world as noobies

The first thing they see are boobies

But unlike most things that guys crave

The fancy car, or the perfect shave

Big screen TV or stocked bookshelves

Boobies are the one thing we dont want ourselves

BWURHURHUR. I was wondering who wrote this one because it’s so lovely. There’s no punctuation for apostrophes so fill it in yourself. The PPF uses typewriters but I see in the back some with Macs with a printer. I wonder if this one was the one with the printer because if you analyze the print, you see some red dots.

HMMMM.

This poem was verily amusing and funny. We liked it a lot and speculated it must be one of the guys of the group.

So thus we’re done for the day at the museum and went to Komalas to eat. Meanwhile, if you joined the Facebook page of the museum, there’s a competition where you send in photos of the festival! Prizes were vouchers from Caesars up to $200! Guess who won?

BWUAHAHAH! I got myself a sword. It’s made of wood. I’ll have to buy some silver paint to make the blade prettier for close up shoots. It looks good afar but you need to do your own paint touching up to make it more real. Avariel got herself a letter opener set and Raven got a boken in case of vampire/zombie apocalypse and a utility knife!

You guys should definitely join the museum’s facebook for more events in the future.